Just as
there is a division within Islam between Sunni’s and Shites, a fashion divide
has splintered Muslim women into three factions. On one side are those Muslim
women who are true believers. Around the world -- in hijab hotspots -- these
traditionalists are fighting for their right to wear head scarves as expressions
of their religious piety. Caught in the middle -- sometimes in the crossfire --
are Muslim women who live in countries with issues on what constitutes national
identity. On the opposite end of the spectrum are a new generation of young
Muslim women known as “Muhajababes,” rebels who cover up to be cool, but hide
their true selves behind their veils.

Their
stories may surprise you.

In Iran
this year the fashion police have stepped up their daily patrols. This special
police detail scours the parking lots of Iranian malls looking for fashion
offenders. An improperly dressed Muslim woman in Ahdmadinee Land is lucky if she
gets away with a warning for having a bad hijab. If she is caught driving in
unsuitable Islamic attire, her car can be impounded.

Things can
get a little more radical in Pakistan. A woman provincial government minister
was shot dead by a fellow who didn’t think her head was covered properly. He
claimed the fabric of her hijab was far too transparent.

Hayrunisa
Gul, the wife of a candidate for the Presidency of Turkey, has taken a lot of
heat for wearing a proper hijab. Turkey has taken great pains to establish its
society along scrupulously secular lines, so some folks are horrified at the
thought of a First Lady with a hijab. But Mrs. Gul is adamant about being
thoroughly modern. As she said to a reporter from The Economist: “My scarf
covers my head, not my brain.” For the record, both Turkey and Tunisia have
banned women with hijabs from working in government positions.

The communist government of Yugoslavia wouldn’t tolerate them, but headscarves
are now being worn in post-war Bosnia. They are giving rise to old ethnic
conflicts in areas populated by Christian Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats.
Sounds like a job for Iranian-style fashion police as opposed to UN Peace
Keepers.

On the
Champs Elysees, Muslim women stroll by in both the traditional black and pastel
colored chadors (full length outer garb in addition to head coverings), but like
state students in Turkey and Tunisia, Muslim school girls in France are not
allowed to wear hijabs. While they were at it, the French also banned any other
form of religious dress or symbolic accessories, like those trendy crucifixes.

In Canada, wearing a headscarf in public schools is also forbidden on the
grounds that it challenges “Canadian/French patriotism,” and apparently sports
sensibilities too. In mid- June, a team of Muslim girls dropped out of a
national tae-kwon-do championship tournament because they were told their hijabs
must be removed.

Last October, Jack Straw, Leader of the British House of Commons, while neutral
on hijabs, felt compelled to share that Muslim women who wore full veils made
him uneasy. They also bedevil London bus and taxi drivers forced to brake
abruptly for fully veiled women who can’t see well enough to safely cross city
streets. Sometimes, they don’t brake fast enough. Ouch.

Which brings us to the controversial book, "Muhajababes", (Constable and
Robinson Publishers, UK, June 2006) written by BBC news producer and print
journalist, Allegra Stratton. You just have to love that title, even though she
didn’t coin the word.

In her mid 20’s, British born Stratton learned some Arabic and began researching
the lives of her age compatriots in the Middle East. One of the first things she
learned is how many of them there are. 250 million to be exact. Over 60% of
Arabs are 25 or younger.

Stratton
recalls the moment when, while driving around (pre-war) Beirut with a friend
named Darah, they encountered two girls who were “cigarillo thin and Coco Chanel
chic with small and tight black hijabs to match their outfits. Darah called them
“muhajababes.”

In Arabic,
“muhajabah” simply means one who veils. Stratton was soon to learn that these
young women were being pulled -- more aptly positioning themselves -- between
piety and secularism. They wear the veil not out of religious devotion or as a
political statement, but merely because it's trendy. Stratton wrote: “The
meaning of “muhajababe” was pretty obvious. These were ostensibly traditional
girls, but with a surprising, sassy, modern twist.”

Digging a
little deeper, she discovered just how modern Muhajababes are. One of them told
her: “Friends of ours who are veiling are doing it because a tight headscarf and
a tight outfit is a good look.”

Stratton continues: “in a taxi traveling from Beirut to Jordan, I sat between
two girls a little younger than myself. They wore the uniform of 20-somethings
everywhere -- flared jeans, hems frayed where fashion trainers had worn them
down. They were talking about the prevalence of plastic surgery among the girls
in their university.

They laughed about two girls who had had nose jobs or “rhinos” during the last
holiday. When they returned to class their teacher had remarked how they had
bought the same nose. “Bad enough when it’s the same T-shirt,” said the younger
girl.” So many now request “a Gywneth Paltrow nose,” that most Middle Eastern
plastic surgeons keep a photo of the Oscar winning actress in their surgeries.

Muhajababes watch what the Arabs call “Video-clips”, music videos featuring
scantily clad male or female singers “filmed for four minutes wriggling in sand
dunes or jiggling on bed sheets.“ They also listen to western pop stars whose
lyrics, they say, are teaching them “how to deal with men.”

“Take sex
before marriage,” said one candid Muhajababe. “I know it is haram (forbidden by
Islam) but the veiled girls . . . they are all at it.”

Stratton then had explained to her the notion of the “Urfi marriage.” These
ceremonies allow a young couple to "get married temporarily" and thereby escape
damnation on the basis of fornication. There are, they confided, some post-Urfi
operations for these temporary brides that are designed to restore their
virginity. Even worse, some admitted to secretly smoking and dancing in lycra
tights in places where someone always has to act as a lookout.

Muhajababes, Stratton was forced to conclude, are cultural contradictions. No
kidding. She also garnered a little hope from them because, she believes, they
have inadvertently launched a bit of an Islamic reformation and portend a more
moderate Muslim future.
To others, a world full of Muslim women with Gywneth Paltrow’s nose and Britney
Spears’ romantic skill sets will strike a note of terror.

Susan Easton is a third career theologian. She holds a B.A. and M.A. in
Religious Studies and Theology from the Jesuits. Susan and her husband
of 37 years, Terry, divide their time between homes in the Bay Area and
London.